The Autumn Meeting was a little earlier than usual this year, being played before the Grafton Morrish rather than afterwards. As a result, the course was undergoing work on the fairways and greens which made them slow and less even than in recent years.
Most of us met for an excellent meal in the Brancaster Staithe Sailing Club on Wednesday evening. The first tee time the next morning was at 7:30 am for the individual Stableford competitions (the Aubrey Edward Challenge Cup & the Rothman Scratch Shield).
We had a worthy winner of both Stableford competitions in Tom Webb. He scored a very good 40 points off a handicap of 15.6, narrowly beating Geoffrey Goddard's 39 points.
Off scratch, his Stableford score was 20 points but the age allowance devised by George Rothman for his Scratch Shield brought his score up to 30 points. There were 3 players on 29 points and so need for a countback to determine the winner. (We didn't get a photograph of Tom as he was unable to stay for the golf and prize giving on Friday).
In the afternoon foursomes for the Sunley Salvers, the winners were Andrew Cox and Archie Pleydell-Bouverie - possibly because some of the other cards were not completed properly!
In the Thursday afternoon knockouts, the low handicap (De Rougement Trophy) finalists to emerge were Nick Hewens and Ross Bryan and the high handicap (Gilroy Challenge Cup) finalists were James Rothman and Thomas Olesen.
The Black Tie dinner and songs were held at Manor House Docking with the kind permission of James Amies and his father, Colin. The Brancaster Captain, Old Etonian and Rendalls parent, Johnnie Martin Smith was our guest and said a few words after dinner. He also got caught by a cunning "put-on" for all those with a double-barrelled name.
The first tee time for the knockouts was at 8 am the next morning. All was well until the final group worked out that they were all staying in the same house and that they could therefore get stuck into some port and arrive late for golf.
They, therefore, missed lunch and prize-giving but they were not in contention for the Secretary's Salvers which were won by Adrian Gracey and Eric Sumner.
The De Rougement Trophy was won by Nick Hewens who felt that perhaps Ross had lost it rather than him winning it; these things can happen after a good dinner. The Gilroy Challenge Cup was won by Thomas Olesen who first won it in 1994.
All in all, it was a great meeting with fine weather and 24 players of all ages providing great camaraderie.Adrian Gracey admiring the view from the 17th tee at Brancaster.
The early finishers on Friday in the balcony before lunch.
